Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Everybody saw this coming.

Bark louder, little dog.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

This blog will pay for itself.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Not all heroes wear capes.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

I really should read my own blog.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Whited Sepulchers Open Thread: Stations of Some Well-Cushioned Crosses

Whited Sepulchers Open Thread: Stations of Some Well-Cushioned Crosses

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Repub “leader” we all knew wouldn’t be able to resist the spotlight:

Ex-Soviet Jewish commentor who actually read the New Testament these Repubs pretend to follow:

To wit, per Bible Gateway:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words…

Let’s be honest: These dudes don’t want their (supposed) God’s rewards — they want the ‘love gifts’ they only garner if they’re standing in front of their flocks, yapping. Jesus saves, but Mammon invests!

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  1. 1.

    Ken

    A week or two ago, someone in the comments noted that most churches are fine with the closures – it’s the ones whose pastors have to make payments on their private jets that are making all the noise.

    (It might also help if, like the Catholic church, the denomination has been through a plague or ten.)

  2. 2.

    TriassicSands

    If my god insisted I go to mass gatherings in the middle of a pandemic, I’d find a new god. I’d want my god to be smarter than the current president.

  3. 3.

    joel hanes

     

    Jesus was against performative piety.

    No one ever told the Falwells, Pat Robertson, the Grahams, Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Joel Osteen, Shuller …  and apparently, they never read that particular passage in Matthew.

    A passage picked out in red letters because it is supposed to be a direct quote from the Christ, and the same passage in which He imparts “Our Father, Who art …”

    There’s another passage in red letters with which they are apparently unfamiliar.   Something about camels and needles.

  4. 4.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ken: Yeah, for all my grudges against the Church of Rome, you’ll notice the Pope has been encouraging people to stay outta public spaces and trust God to know His own.

    It’s the mouthy ‘We’re not like the greedy Papists!!!’  (self-styled) Christians who desperately need to be seen clutching each others’… hands… in public.

    (Which, of course, goes back to the original ‘Protestant’ piety-vs-secularism argument: Were people like Martin Luther genuine prophets defending the true faith, or just hustlers who wanted to milk the rubes without having to hand over most of the swag to a higher ranking boss?… )

  5. 5.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Ken:

    The churches that are chapped about closures are full of people who whimper “try telling that to the mosques”.

    Here in the People’s Democratic Social!st Kenyan Shariah Atheist Republic of Louisville, the mosques, synagogues, and Hindu temples were among the first to close due to the number of medical professionals attending them.

    It’s the redneck churches that are the problem. They have no professional class among the members.

  6. 6.

    TriassicSands

    @joel hanes:

    No one ever told the Falwells, Pat Robertson, the Grahams, Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Joel Osteen, Shuller …  and apparently, they never read that particular passage in Matthew.

    They talked to Jesus and then they talked to their accountants — their accountants were more persuasive.

  7. 7.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @joel hanes: 

    No one ever told the Falwells, Pat Robertson, the Grahams, Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Joel Osteen, Shuller … and apparently, they never read that particular passage in Matthew.

    Don’t forget Tim Tebow. Yet there will always be useful idiots going “Well, actually….” about how that verse doesn’t actually apply to him. I remember when “Tebowing” was a thing in the early 2010s among the conservative white Christian kids (many went to the private Catholic K-8 school in my town) at my public high school. It was so cringy

  8. 8.

    terben

    It’s good to remind ourselves that this is the time to heed the experts in the science of epidemiology.

    ‘Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings’

  11. 11.

    cain

    @delk: does covet checks are for the church! You know they’re going to answer congregation to hand over that stimulus check because the Lord wants it!

  12. 12.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Let’s be honest: These dudes don’t want their (supposed) God’s rewards —

    And they’ve never actually read the Bible.

    As The Devil’s Dictionary explains

    CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

  13. 13.

    scav

    And who was that guy that only yesterday was wanting the names and addresses etc of anyone infected so he could “pray” for them (wink wink)?  Some notorious coastal jackbooted demoncrat no doubt!

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    Jesus saves, but Mammon invests!

    I’m so old, I remember “Jesus saves, Espo scores on the rebound!”

  15. 15.

    Uncle Cholmondeley

    It strikes me that another applicable Matthew verse might be 18:20.  You can do it at home:

    “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

  16. 16.

    cokane

    Churches have to obey fire code building laws, no? that limit the number of people that can gather in them? Don’t see how this is any different.

    Worth noting that a number of more explicitly Christian (Catholic) aligned governments in places like Latin America are indeed enforcing total lockdowns on Easter Sunday and banning gatherings. American Christian crying about persecution here are full of shit. But, that’s not surprising, of course.

  18. 18.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Well here is why Trump is claiming to be a hero because the deaths are under 100,000

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-ask-why-government-let-coronavirus-wash-over-country

    The Washington Post reported on Saturday that during a Situation Room meeting on the pandemic in March, Trump asked White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, “Why don’t we let this wash over the country?”

    The same study also predicted that 1.1 to 1.2 million Americans would die if the strategy were adopted in the U.S.

    So by Trump logic; he got talked out of letting virus trash the country, because the states weren’t idiotic enough to go along with it, so now Trump is a hero.

  19. 19.

    cain

    @cain:

    Let me rephrase:

    You know these people are going to ask their congregation to hand thus checks they need to the church – then something something good Samaritan, something something coffers are low.

  20. 20.

    Rusty

    We should blame the media in this too.  The media is happy to amplify the idiocy of a handful of Evangelical preachers.  At the same time, the heads of the mainline churches are urging their members to stay home.  In my denomination, the largest Lutheran group in the US, the bishop flat out told everyone to stay home.  The media has no interest in putting her or the heads of any of the other large denominations on the news where it would influence watchers to stay home and safe.

  21. 21.

    Jeffro

    I am very glad that – as someone raised generic Protestant who grew up to be atheist – I still taught my kids that Jesus’ sermons and lessons were right in line with our family’s values.  They (at 18 and 14) get it, and while I doubt they will ever walk into a church of any kind, they are great contributors, teammates, helpers, donators, volunteers, participants in our community, and will likely always seek to be their ‘brothers’ keeper’.

    My not-quite-RWNJ mom often wonders why I am so liberal.  I love reminding her that at least half of it is what I learned while helping her with her Sunday School class as a kid.  =)

  22. 22.

    Zelma

    I’m one of the probably not inconsiderable number of practicing Christians here.  (BTW, Annie, I’m a Lutheran and Luther was a true prophet; he was interested in people’s souls, not their money.)

    Nothing drives me crazier than the idea that “Christians” are persecuted in the United States.  It is nothing but a scam and the people who run the con know just what they are doing.  I can only imagine how St. Peter will greet them at the pearly gates.  I’m afraid too many “Christians” have a persecution complex.  They want to persecute anyone who doesn’t share their warped view of religion.  Is it any wonder the younger generation is leaving?

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Andrea González-Ramírez @andreagonram · Apr 10
    “[Easter Sunday is] the day that balances the books for some churches and builds wealth for a few. Holding services now, during the biggest donation day of the year and despite public health warnings, smacks of the worst sort of manipulation.”

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Zelma: Falwell-type Christians and trump Republicans. There were polls early in the trump years showing that a frightening number of white people– I forget the percentage– think they’re victims of  discrimination.

    There was a woman on twitter last week arguing memes like “OK, Karen” and “I’d like to speak to your manager” are racist against white women.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Rusty:

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Related:

    I’ve always (since becoming an atheist) found the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient God terrifying. I don’t believe omnipotence and omnibenevolence can co-exist and if the Christian God is anything like the God of the Bible (New and Old Testament), then I would rather such an evil being not exist

  29. 29.

    scav

    And yet they’re convinced that God will forgive them all their actual sins of active commission, but apparently obeying the law and not putting others at risk for this one Easter?  Damed to hell for all eternity, without exception.

  33. 33.

    James E Powell

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ezekiel 16:49

    Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

    So, it wasn’t the sex stuff after all. Sodom was clearly a Republican stronghold.

  34. 34.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    If we get control back again.  We need to bring the senior editors, the junior editors, the reporters, the scriptwriters, and the stakeholders of every major broadcast network and newspaper and force them to testify, under oath, with the clear understand that the lies in front of the camera WILL be proscuted under the FULL extent of the law.

    Bring them in weekly before C-SPAN, in rotation for MONTHS. Go over old lies under oath, enforce refusal of Congressional subpoena with Federal troops as quickly and publicly as possible. Offer favorable terms for underlings to prove perjury.

    The cult of savvy has forgotten that the freedom of the press is not a free pass to lie for their personal political projects.  We need to make them remember that lesson.

  35. 35.

    Redshift

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am not a Christian, but in the subject of the End Times, my impression is that non-evangelical denominations take seriously the Bible’s admonition that no one can know when it will come, and therefore teach their followers not to base their lives in the idea that it’ll probably happen any day now.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @Redshift: “I sent two boats and a helicopter!”

    Updating:  “I sent you rampant corruption, economic collapse, and a plague, and you still think Trump is God’s chosen?”

  38. 38.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    kind of on the religious theme…

    Lauren Halvorsen @halvorsen 12h

    I saw Goody Proctor without a mask at the Safeway

  41. 41.

    patroclus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That doesn’t read like an honest question – that reads like a strawman gotcha question.  In my church – the Presbyterian Church – the very word “presbyterian” means “democracy.”  We decide everything democratically; we democratically elect elders and deacons and representatives to presbyteries and synods and the General Assembly.  We decide whatever doctrine we have by democratic means.  The concept of “priesthood of all believers” means we all get to decide what we want to believe.  I don’t understand at all how you think living in a democratic church is any different than living with a democratic government.  It is, in fact, one and the same.  Further, democratizing the church was a historical prelude to creating democratically-elected governments.  Believing in Christian teachings like loving thy neighbor, not judging and turning the other cheek and doing good works like creating hospitals and schools and libraries does not pre-suppose belief in an omnipotent omniscient Supreme Being.  Are you truly unaware of the real nature of Christianity because of the behavior of idiotic right-wingers who pervert its very nature?

    [What was the outcome of the Kansas lawsuit today?  Does anyone know?]

  44. 44.

    Kattails

    @Redshift: It’s not unknown for a firefighter to be an arsonist; they get off on setting the fires and then heroically putting them out. Unless of course you are so galactically incompetent (I stole this) that the place burns to the ground and you go up with it.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Will McAvoy @WillMcAvoyACN

    In other news, Michelle Bachman has just cut a campaign ad for Joe Biden, perhaps unintentionally.

     Right Wing Watch@RightWingWatch · Apr 10
    Michele Bachmann warns that if Joe Biden is elected president, “this will become Barack Obama’s third term.”

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    @James E Powell: Exactly. The sin of the citizens of Sodom was they would seize travelers, assault them, steal their possessions, and leave them for dead. That is why Lot went out to meet his kinsman Abraham and bring him safely to his home so that he wouldn’t be assaulted. They broke the rules/laws for hospitality.

  50. 50.

    dmsilev

    @dmsilev: Ok, an update.
    Kansas court strikes down GOP measure allowing in-person Easter church services, lets coronavirus restrictions stand

    The Kansas Supreme Court on Saturday struck down a Republican-led effort to allow the continuation of in-person church services across the state despite the governor’s ban on such gatherings to prevent the spread of coronavirus — what has been called the “War over Easter” here — as the virus-related death toll continued to rise.

  52. 52.

    Mallard Filmore

    @patroclus:

     

    [What was the outcome of the Kansas lawsuit today? Does anyone know?]

    “The Kansas Supreme Court said late Saturday night that Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order banning religious services of more than 10 attendees during the coronavirus pandemic will remain in effect.”

    https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142468590

    https://www.kmbc.com/article/kansas-supreme-court-says-executive-order-banning-religious-service-of-more-than-10-people-stands-governor-laura-kelly-covid-19-coronavirus/32114710#

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Redshift: Correct. Also most of the evangelical views on the end times are made in America. Almost all of them rooted in the preaching of William Miller in the 1830s, as well as other fire and brimstone preachers in the Burned Over district of upstate NY. The who pre and post millennial dispensationalist debate originates from that period. As does the rapture, which was a Miller invention.

  55. 55.

    Amir Khalid

    @terben:

    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings’

    I take offence at the bolded part. You could just as easily (and I think more aptly) have mentioned Europe’s centuries of bigotry and violence between Catholics and Protestants, much of it sanctioned for political ends by various states.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    @patroclus: Governor Kelly’s order was upheld:

    https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article241942766.html

    Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order limiting in-person religious gatherings to fight the coronavirus stands, the state Supreme Court ruled hours before Easter Sunday began.

    In a narrow ruling, the court said top Kansas Republican leaders didn’t follow the procedures outlined in a resolution approved by the full Legislature when they voted earlier this month to revoke Kelly’s order.

    The decision paved the way for Kelly’s order to be in effect over Easter, though it was unclear how widely it would be enforced. Most churches have already canceled in-person services and Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican, has advised police and sheriffs not to arrest or criminally charge anyone violating the order.

    The unsigned majority opinion, released just after 9 p.m. Saturday, said the resolution’s plain text requires the State Finance Council – a body comprised of legislative leaders and chaired by the governor – to first grant an extension of Kelly’s emergency powers before the Legislative Coordinating Council, a body made up only of top legislators, can revoke her orders.

    The opinion drew no conclusions about broader questions of public health and religious freedom – or whether the resolution conflicts with state law, as Kelly argued.

    “Because this resolves the present dispute, we do not reach broader questions concerning the asserted conflicts” between the resolution and state law, the opinion says.

  64. 64.

    patroclus

    @Redshift: Well, I am a Christian and my view is that the historicity of the Book of Revelation indicates that it was written about 95 in the Common Era by someone (not John the Apostle) who was a member of a Jewish-Christian sect who disagreed with the then-prevailing view of extending Christianity to non-Jews, which he was very upset about.  It was about his visions of then-contemporary events – not the “End Times” – and is basically apocalyptic gibberish that should never have been included in the liturgical canon (and it isn’t by many churches).  We inherited it from the Roman Catholics – we should have deleted it but it doesn’t really matter because few Presbyterians take it very seriously anyway.  We certainly don’t live our lives by it – funding hospitals, universities, libraries and ministering to the sick seem far more important, dontcha think?

  65. 65.

    LesGS

    Y’know, Christians could use this Easter Sunday to imagine themselves as Jesus’ followers on the original Easter Sunday.

    Grappling with a devastating personal loss.

    Wondering what just happened, their expectations of the future shattered.

    And, sheltering in their homes in fear of their lives.

  66. 66.

    sdhays

    @patroclus: Are you truly unaware of the real nature of Christianity because of the behavior of idiotic right-wingers who pervert its very nature?

    There’s no such thing as “the real nature of Christianity”. Good people do good things and bad people do bad things, and they work within the framework that best fits them or is most available to them. “Christianity” is a concept, and it clearly means very different things to different people. Even people who (begrudgingly) accept that people in other denominations are “Christian” disagree on what it means. That’s why there are different denominations.

    What’s the old George Carlin bit about the two Baptists whose differences are minuscule yet consider each other heretics?

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LesGS: I don’t mean to be calendarically pedantic, but the original Easter took place on what would be a Monday evening or on Tuesday. Days in Judaism start and end at sundown. So if Jesus was entombed on Friday shortly before sundown when the sabbath would start, then 3 days later would be Monday after Sundown for the start of the day.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @sdhays: I am generally the least pedantic person on here largely because I know I’m fat finger typoing things left, write, and centaur.

  74. 74.

    LesGS

    @Adam L Silverman: I welcome and celebrate your pedantery. Pedantousity? Pedanterousness?

    Can you explain how this most high holy Christian day is named after a Pagan goddess? :D

  76. 76.

    patroclus

    @sdhays: Yes and no.  Like truth, we are always searching for the real nature of Christianity.  But I believe the idiotic Kansas Republicans are wrong and I (and the Kansas Governor) are right.  To me, Christianity is about saving lives; not holding nonsensical “worship” services with mass attendance in the midst of a pandemic.

  78. 78.

    sdhays

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m just teasing. What you wrote is interesting. It’s always interesting to see you write about, well anything, but when you write about ancient Israel it’s always a treat.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Another Scott: Yep. If you write Ceaser Nero in Hebrew letters, then assign those letters their numerical values, and then add them up you get 666. It was code that only those that could read and write Hebrew fluently enough to understand the numerical values of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet would understand. I’ve known this since 4th grade.

    You should’ve paid more attention in Hebrew school.//

  80. 80.

    joel hanes

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I wish the councils had decided to put the Revelation in the apocrypha, instead of including it in the canon.

    IMHO, that book has caused more harm to the world than any other for over a thousand years.

  82. 82.

    sdhays

    @patroclus: I think possibly the fundamental difference between conservative Christians and liberal Christians (and probably any liberal/conservative difference in any religion) is the difference between “knowing” what makes you a good Christian and “searching” for it.

  83. 83.

    SFAW

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It was code that only those that could read and write Hebrew fluently enough to understand the numerical values of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet would understand.

    OK, smart guy, but if it was in Hebrew, wouldn’t the numbers be read from right to left? Kinda changes things.

  84. 84.

    patroclus

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah, but that’s if you believe that the Gospels’ account bears any relation to what actually happened,  They were, of course, written decades afterwards by people whose memories might not have been all that accurate or who might not have even been there.  The only real historical evidence comes from Josephus, who wasn’t there either and who certainly didn’t go into that much detail – according to him, John the Baptist made a bigger impact than Jesus.

  85. 85.

    Mandalay

    Not entirely O/T, I got RWNJ spam email today inviting me to go to this web site and vote on whether “you think Broward County beaches should be re-opened to only Broward County residents with valid ID from dawn – 9am and again from 5pm – dark?“.

    There are gazillions of similar web pages for other Florida beaches. Only 446 dead in Florida so far, and our governor knows we can do better. Reopening the beaches can only help.

    They’d like to close the beach at 9 a.m. in time for us to go straight to church I guess.

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LesGS: Same reason that Christmas is on the date of a major Roman holiday, Saturnalia, even though Jesus was born sometime between April and June, which was when the census was being taken. Or based on the actual description of the ritual meal and festive celebration of the Last Supper, what is being described is Sukkot (the festival of booths), which occurs in the fall, not in the early spring. Or why the dog is named St. Bernard. As the early Christian community tried to survive, differentiate itself from Judaism, and then, eventually became a state religion with a major missionary component, it had to co-opt other earlier traditions. Either Jewish, Roman, or from a variety of the indigenous religions inside and outside of the Roman empire. In the case of Easter, when the early Church leaders decided that the Last Supper was a seder, rather than a Sukkot dinner held on the roof in a booth (sukkah) strewn over (estremen for those who like their New Testament in the Greek) with leaves, branches, and fronds, then they had to have a non-Jewish holiday in the spring to attach it to. And since the worship of Ishtar was widespread throughout the Mediterranean both in it’s original form and as part of the Dianic Cult, and it is a holiday of rebirth (especially for the Dianic Cult) where the hanged god dies and is reborn, you got Easter.

    If you’re familiar with the Irish/Celtic folk song Lord of the Dance, this is actually about the Dianic Cult and its practices as understood through the lens of Christianity. And the cult had widespread influence. If you recall, during the Exodus, Miriam led the women of Israel in ritual dancing. This was the Dianic Cult. Miriam was most likely a Dianic priestess. And Passover itself includes a number of rebirth elements in its symbology. Including an egg on the Seder plate.

    These traditions are so much more richly interesting and interestingly convoluted than the literalists could ever fathom.

    ETA: I just checked and it is now, thankfully, available at Project Gutenberg. So if you want to know more, I highly recommend Margaret Murray’s anthropological study of the Dianic cult, which was published by Oxford Press in 1921:
    https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20411/20411-h/20411-h.htm

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @rikyrah

    I give up. What are those emojis supposed to be? Best I can make out is some kind of cartoonish monkey face? Or maybe grapefruits?

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    @joel hanes: I’m amazed they didn’t schism themselves into irrelevance with those councils. But the Revelation of John, while interesting for a variety of reasons, is really problematic as scripture.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SFAW: Yes they would. I don’t understand your point. I’m not trying to be a pain here, I’m just not sure what difference it would make.

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mandalay: So I got several of those last week. Even checked with a good friend from grad school who is a Republican campaign professional in Florida and only works on state and local races. He’d never heard of them. I did some digging. They’re a shell incorporated at a mail drop in Delaware in the middle of January 2020. I have the phone number if you want to call on Monday and ask who they’re fronting for? More seriously, I expect they’re either fronting for the President’s campaign, DeSantis campaign, the President’s PAC, DeSantis’s PAC, Associated Industries of Florida (the business lobby that controls the Florida legislative GOP), or the Florida Republican Party.

  94. 94.

    patroclus

    @Adam L Silverman: We sing Lord of the Dance all the time! (whenever I go to church – Presbyterians are notorious for not doing so).  But I’ve read a lot about Jesus’ supposed birth and death dates and my considered conclusion is that not a single person has ever had a frickin clue as to when either occurred.  It’s all supposition based on not-entirely-reliable “sources” that were written by humans for vastly different purposes many decades afterwards; all of whom were looking backwards.

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    @patroclus: There’s no way to really know. But if you take the passages that he was born during the census as accurate, which, again, they may not be, then he was born sometime between the spring and the summer. But we know why Christmas is on the same date as Saturnalia, and it was to co-opt the Romans who had celebrated Saturnalia.

  98. 98.

    Kent

    @sdhays:What’s the old George Carlin bit about the two Baptists whose differences are minuscule yet consider each other heretics?

    I don’t know that one. But the Cheers version was pretty good on the distinctions between Lutherans when Woody discovers his fiance Kelly is a different flavor of Lutheran:

    https://youtu.be/x3HuShaTNoY

  99. 99.

    Mike in NC

    @Mandalay: Plenty of idiots around here want all the beaches reopened ASAP. Do they think if one person goes for a stroll there won’t be 1000 more close behind?

  101. 101.

    Kent

    @Mike in NC:@Mandalay: Plenty of idiots around here want all the beaches reopened ASAP. Do they think if one person goes for a stroll there won’t be 1000 more close behind?

    In some parts of FL the beachfront property owners are suing to open the beaches ONLY to beachfront property owners on the theory that it is just an extension of their back yards.  All the other riffraff wold be excluded by law, of course.  Privilege anyone?

  102. 102.

    Noncarborundum

    @Adam L Silverman:  Don’t know if this applied to Israel, but at least some ancient cultures counted days inclusively. For example, in the ancient Roman calendar, March 13 was “ante diem III Id. Mart.”, the 3rd day before the Ides of March. By this style of reckoning, Sunday would have been considered the “third day” after a Friday crucifixion.

  103. 103.

    LesGS

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh, my gosh, thank you! I was just teasing. But I appreciate the link to Murray’s work. I’ve read Frazer’s Golden Bough and Leland’s Aradia, but Murray only in bits and pieces

    ETA: And I actually know what a sukkah is! I was a housemate’s Shabbat goy for years.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Noncarborundum: That’s how it wound up wrong in Christian practice. When the date for the holiday of Easter was set, so much time had passed that it wasn’t set by Christians that had either recently been Jews or were from the Jerusalem community of James the brother of Jesus (the Ebionites). Rather they were Romans who were Christian and had no idea how Jews calculated days.

  106. 106.

    Adam L Silverman

    @LesGS: Sarc tags “//” are your friend!

    No worries. A lot of taxpayers paid for me to learn all this stuff. If you paid taxes in the 1990s, then consider this the payoff for that.

  107. 107.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Shall take your word for it. They look nothing anywhere near that on my rig. In fact most emojis other than the obvious hearts and faces they mostly look like indeterminate colored blobs to me, so I generally pay them no attention. They’ve always been geared more for phones than for real computers, and even in those cases not everyone may not see the same thing.

    Side note: The virus has also delayed the rolling out of some new emojis which were previously scheduled.

  108. 108.

    joel hanes

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Don’t forget Tim Tebow.

    I have to tell you that I had in fact intentionally forgotten about Tim Tebow, and will do so again if no one reminds me.   He wasn’t even a good football player.

  112. 112.

    joel hanes

    @Mandalay:

    Only 446 dead [from COVID-19] in Florida so far

     

    In reality, of course, there have been far more — DeSantis is cooking the books, suppressing accurate reporting.   He’s following Trump’s lead in attempting to manage a pandemic by treating it as a public relations problem.

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @joel hanes:

    LOL. I don’t blame you. It was particularly annoying having him shoved in my face all the time because I’ve never been into football

  117. 117.

    SFAW

    @LesGS:

    And I actually know what a sukkah is!

    Some moron who voted for the Murderer-in-Chief, thinking his own life would get soooo much better? Although I’ve usually seen it spelt with a “c.”

  121. 121.

    Mai naem mobile

    Rand Paul needs to go fuck himself and nobody in the Senate should be talking to this selfish POS. He should be publically shunned. It would be bad enough if he was some idiot RWNJ GOP senator like Inhofe but being a doctor, he should have known better. He’s around a bunch of 70+ yr olds, many with personal histories of cancer and many with families with histories of cancer. Shows you what a garbage person he is.

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    Ugh Eddie Mueller on TCM’s noir alley outfitted this week in a gray jacket with off-white windowpane pattern, rust colored pocket square, baby blue shirt and mostly bronze colored tie.

  126. 126.

    Mandalay

    @Kent:

    In some parts of FL the beachfront property owners are suing to open the beaches ONLY to beachfront property owners…

    Yep, and nobody could have predicted that one of those rich assholes would be Mike Huckabee:

    On Monday, the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate joined with a bunch of his rich neighbors to sue Walton County, Florida, in federal court, alleging that the county’s beach closing order has left them faced with “threats of criminal prosecution for doing no more than setting foot in their own backyards that they own.” They told the court that the beach closure order constitutes an illegal taking of property without compensation and violates their constitutionally guaranteed property and due process rights. “The county’s ordinance forces family members into a confined space within their house rather than allow them to social distance and recreate in their sandy backyard,” the plaintiffs complained in a court document. (There has been an ongoing and heated legal fight over whether Huckabee really does technically “own” the beach in front of his house, which had been used by the public for centuries before he moved there.)

    The notion of watching Huckabee “recreate” is intriguing.

  129. 129.

    cain

    @patroclus:

    Which is the rub, even the religion of Christianity seemed to have started decades after Jesus died.

    I was always curious as to what kind of man was John the Baptist.

  136. 136.

    Mandalay

    @joel hanes:

    DeSantis is cooking the books, suppressing accurate reporting.

    Yes he is. Here’s the latest example from earlier this evening:

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ general counsel called a representative of the Miami Herald’s law firm seeking to quash a public records lawsuit that would force the state to divulge the names of all elder-care facilities that have had a positive test for the coronavirus.

    The back-door pressure — through an attorney that had no involvement in the case — paid off.

    The law firm, Holland & Knight, told Sanford Bohrer, a senior partner with decades of representing the Miami Herald, to stand down and abandon the lawsuit.

    But unfortunately for DeSantis, the Herald said “Fuck you! We’ll just use a different lawyer. See you in court, you vile, corrupt bootlicking pigfucker…..” (or words to that effect):

    The suit will still be filed, but by another law firm, said Miami Herald publisher and executive editor Aminda Marqués González.

  137. 137.

    CaseyL

    @cain:  I’m not nearly as well-versed in Jewish religious history as Adam, as I stopped going to temple ages and ages ago.  But a few  years ago I made a tentative foray into reconnecting, attending a workshop at a local Reform congregation (Reform, for those who don’t know, is the most liberal/least traditional of the main three branches of Judaism.)

    The workshop was fascinating.  The main speaker talked about how Old Testament Jewish religious structure was priest-based, and how the priesthood inevitably offered theology that was calcified, with more and more elaborate rituals and obscure interpretations meant to maintain the social order.  Prophets were reactions against that: rogues claiming to have had visions,  challenging priests and Kings, and upending the “established” interpretations of scripture.  The Old Testament is full of prophets making trouble.  John the Baptist was such a trouble-making prophet.

    Looking at that with a modern perspective, it seems to me that  a prophetic “type” wouldn’t be very different from anti-establishment types nowadays.  They would be disaffected to start with, possibly from a lower status background, and driven by a divine vision having nothing to do with years of study and careful discussions about how to use the scriptures to keep the King and nobles happy. The whole purpose of prophets was to purify and cleanse what they saw as impediments to knowing the true word of God; to challenge and upset people.

    Not comfortable people to be around, in other words!

  139. 139.

    terben

    @Amir Khalid: I’m not clear as to the point you are trying to make here. You are mistaken if you consider this comment to be aimed at one religion in particular, rather than religion in general. The quote comes from Victor Stenger. A couple more:

    ‘Science is not going to change its commitment to the truth. We can only hope religion changes its commitment to nonsense.’

    ‘The problem is that people think faith is something to be admired. In fact, faith means you believe in something for which you have no evidence.’

  141. 141.

    Procopius

    I’m wondering why this passage has suddenly been discovered now. I mean, I’m glad it’s being brought up, but why wasn’t it talked about back 60 years ago when people were screaming about our precious children not being forced to pray at school? That affected a whole lot of people who didn’t claim to follow the particular religion of the persons who wrote the prayers. Why wasn’t it brought up in those cases where people had to sue to prevent meetings from being opened with prayers? It’s not as if this particular violation of the rabbi’s instructions is a new thing.

  142. 142.

    Yutsano

    I’m going with the Albigensian heresy reasoning here. Kill them all. God will know His own.

  143. 143.

    Amir Khalid

    @terben:

    To say that religion leads to extremism and thence to violence, citing an example that points the finger at just Muslims, is personally offensive to me. I am myself sceptical about the foundational myths of religions in general, and of the Abrahamic faiths in particular; but I consider it a wild exaggeration to claim, as Victor Stenger does, that religion has a “commitment to nonsense”. The Golden Age of Islam had no such commitment, and neither did the Enlightenment.

  144. 144.

    opiejeanne

    @Jeffro: When my mom died, my dad’s pastor talked to me at the memorial service and was surprised and delighted to find that I was such a liberal, and said that he hadn’t expected it from my father’s daughter.

    I smiled at him and told him that if Dad hadn’t wanted me to grow up to be a liberal, he shouldn’t have taken me to Sunday School. He laughed.

    Of course when you’re a little kid you don’t see the disconnect between the Sunday sermon and the way we behave toward others, regarding charity, and war, and loving our neighbor, and just who is our neighbor anyway, and just how are we supposed to be our brother’s keeper?

    Later, when you’re a teenager and you’ve noticed that disconnect you may shrug it off, for a while, because compartmentalizing  makes your life work, for a while, but if you have absorbed and thought about the basics of what Jesus taught, and not necessarily all of the other actually unimportant stuff that’s been tacked onto his story, it does start pushing at you, moving you toward liberalism.

  147. 147.

    Joey Maloney

    @Mandalay: That filthy cocksucker bought a house down the street from the one that I used to summer in with some family. Immediately tore down a nice, modest breezeblock house and replaced it with something that looks like the baby if the Transformers gang-raped a megachurch.

    But the point is, he has plenty of backyard without the beach. All of those houses have a good 50 feet of grass, then a staircase that goes down over a protected dune to the beach. Huckabee is the same weaselly lying sack of shit in his personal as in his professional life.

  148. 148.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m sticking my neck out on Monday and am going to chase after Walker’s law license, as well as filing to Federal judicial conduct complaint regarding his doing this in a blatantly ex parte fashion, as well as his religiousity. The opinion is about 10 pages’ worth of scathing religious gobbledygook that he didn’t have time to notify the city of.

  149. 149.

    Joey Maloney

    @opiejeanne: We could replace it with “Science shoots for the moon; Religion shoots at doctors” with a picture of a crime scene in front of a family planning clinic.

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    Heard on the Neil Boortz show some years ago: “Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Muslims do not recognize images of Muhammad. And Baptists do not recognize other Baptists at the liquor store.”

  152. 152.

    206inKY

    I find it crazy that this surge in western kentucky was predicted about 5 days ago by kinsa’s fever “weather map.” If you click on “trend,” it shows declining as blue, increasing as red, and steady as grey. Most of the country is now grey or blue. But 5 days ago, the whole country was blue with two exceptions: the mountain west, and a small strip of red counties running from Owensboro down to Nashville. I was freaking out. Now it’s clear it was justified. You can click on individual counties to see the chart over time.

    https://healthweather.us/?mode=Trend

    If you putter around on this, it’s pretty amazing how well social distancing seems to be working.

  153. 153.

    Robert Sneddon

    @patroclus: I LOVED the Book of Revelations. I couldn’t bring real books to church (SF mainly with a side order of encyclopaedias) when I was a kid so when the guy in the black robes up in the pulpit was droning on and on and on about fairy tales and magic and how I was going to Hell I could read some fun stuff at the back of the Bible and keep myself from falling asleep.

  156. 156.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Amir Khalid: The major religions are renowned for their extremism, military and secular. It’s how they got to be major religions after all.

  160. 160.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Anne Laurie: Were people like Martin Luther genuine prophets defending the true faith, or just hustlers who wanted to milk the rubes without having to hand over most of the swag to a higher ranking boss?

    Luther was an egotistical, nasty, perpetually angry, Jew-hating son of a bitch. Then again, consider the competition (I’m looking at you, M. Sweetness-&-Light Jean Calvin) Seems to me most of the leaders of the Deformation were pretty miserable excuses for human beings – as well as the bastards still wearing the skirts of Wholly Mother Church. All of which extends to our current infestation of “evilangelicals” and O-Pustulent Dei mackerel-snappers.

    BTW if you concluded from the paragraph above that I don’t have a lot of use for Xtianity of any stripe, let me assure you  that extends to any sort of “spirituality” revolving around a Big Daddy In The Sky who allegedly demands worship from us down below lest he fuck us up good.

    That said, veselé Velikonoce to all yinz bleevers.

  161. 161.

    SFAW

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    if you concluded from the paragraph above that I don’t have a lot of use for Xtianity

    Hmmm … didn’t pick up on that. I’ll have to re-read it.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Robert A. Heinlein would like a word:

    God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent – it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills.

    Where normal, decent human beings saw mordantly witty mots justes, Foulwell, Slobberson et al. saw a business plan. (Except they’d take the big bills too.)

  163. 163.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: Gandhi would like a word here:

    I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

  164. 164.

    Amir Khalid

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Is it that extremists, conquerors, and tyrants wrap themselves in religiosity; or is it that religion demands extremism, conquest, and tyranny?

  165. 165.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: One of the cleverest buttons I ever saw (many years ago) read

    668 – Neighbor Of The Beast

    I felt as if I was living at 664 at the time…

  166. 166.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: Back in the day I used to characterize one Richard Milhous Nixon as “the sort of Quaker who cheats at poker.” Somewhat equivalent concept IMO.

  167. 167.

    MoCA Ace

    @Joey Maloney:  Immediately tore down a nice, modest breezeblock house and replaced it with something that looks like the baby if the Transformers gang-raped a megachurch.

    Can’t stop laughing at this one… Thank you!

  169. 169.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Uncle Cosmo: come sit by me(six social distancing feet away of course). I know some religious people who genuinely practice what the believe. But the idea that I have to believe in any god to be a good person is ridiculous.

  170. 170.

    AnotherBruce

    @joel hanes: Tebow is also a pathetic baseball player. I think the Mets still employ him.  As a hitter he has the worst hitting stats of any of the 314 Triple A players. Here is the line, .163 BA .240 on base %, .255 slugging. Those are numbers that would be embarrasing on a single A team. But you know, Tebow is some kind of saint that needs to be protected.

  172. 172.

    James E Powell

    @joel hanes:

    I have to tell you that I had in fact intentionally forgotten about Tim Tebow, and will do so again if no one reminds me.   He wasn’t even a good football player.

    He humiliated the Steelers and for that I will always remember him well.

  173. 173.

    J R in WV

    @cain:

    You know these people are going to ask their congregation to hand thus checks they need to the church – then something something good Samaritan, something something coffers are low.

     

    That’s the best thing about the private jets — the coffers are always low when you have to feed and care for private jetliners, hire a pilot, get maintenance on the engines, airframe, electronics… etc, etc.

    Ya’ll have to pitch in !!! to help us reach out to the poor heathens of the Virgin Islands !!! They need your help and prayers !!!

    We plan a ministry of missionaries !!! and we need lots of help to get underway~!!~ So, please! Empty your pockets for Jesus ~!!!~

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